@JourneymanGeek - What do you mean? Are you saying you don't believe me, that it was an honest mistake? The second time, there was a message signed by you and two other moderators, forwarding something from Jon Ericson. The first time, there was nothing. I was assuming you would have been aware of the message that had your name as a signatory.
@JourneymanGeek - I didn't say I was assuming you were involved in the decision or the message. I was trying to say that I was assuming you would or could have been aware of the message and the contents. My point was, if you were aware, then why might you think that it wasn't an honest mistake? Them's fighting words. If in fact that is what you meant. Once again, as happens extremely often when I read your writing,
@JourneymanGeek - Here is your comment that I did not understand (which on the face of it looked confrontational but I hope it wasn't): "@SonictheReinstateMonica-hog uhm, see the rest of the conversation Which is context you probably lacked, and I was intentionally unclear about :D"
@JourneymanGeek - But the question is not whether you try to be confusing. It's whether you try to be clear. Look, it might just be me. But I really don't understand. You wrote, "I suspect they're aware." I was aware when I responded to the invitation to come to the Tavern, but I was not sure, when I wrote the second post.
Well, I'd appreciate it if you would assume the best, as I think we are all supposed to do. Certainly assuming the best is a good way to avoid unnecessary conflict.
If you want to believe me, great. If you don't, I don't think there's anything more I can do about it.
@ArtOfCode - Sometimes achieving mutual understanding requires patience.
@JourneymanGeek - Well, that's why I included the paragraph in italics. I was doing like the dog who lies on his back to show he is non-threatening. Because moderators and CM's are, understandably, on a hair trigger these days and I would not like to be suspended again.
I don't hold it against anyone, but I would really like to get that looked into. It is very discouraging when I can't get a dialogue set up with the relevant moderators (they/you referred me to the CMs) but the CMs don't respond.
@JourneymanGeek Would have been much nicer and better for me to understand if you'd put the words "by now" after your initial message to me. (And, in this case, it would have avoided a long discussion.)
If you don't feel the governance of SE works for you - unless you're on the board, turning SE into a wikimedia style foundation. Also asking for salary or organisational details outside the salary calculator isn't going to happen
or sharing how long support requests take to get handled for that matter
Look, from my point of view, my 7-day suspension was unfair and arbitrary. I accept that for moderators to be able to do their job, they need to do things that are sometimes, or perhaps often, going to seem unfair. But that shouldn't mean that there can't be a conversation about what happened.
Well, I disagree. A suspension, if it is really to resolve anything, should be seen as a teachable moment.
2
You can, but you choose not to. Which is your right.
If you think that the resentment is just going to go away, and that I am suddenly going to feel less frustrated when the things you write are inscrutable, and you refuse to clarify when I say I don't understand, then you are sadly mistaken.
@aparente001 Simply cause it will remove some of the protections we have - put in place due to folks actually getting threatened, and because folks will intentionally tie us up as long as possible, then complain cause they're not happy cause we're not going to admit we're wrong, even when we arn't
there's got to be a line drawn somewhere to how far we have to go
Here are the facts, from my point of view: I requested assistance in dealing with a specific issue. This request fell on deaf ears. Several weeks later, I was suspended because of events that transpired in relation to the specific request I had made. // I am not trying to tie up your time. I'm trying to communicate clearly and productively.
"The standard, official advice if the moderator team can't adequately respond to you regarding a suspension is to contact SE." -- That would be great, if they would actually respond.
@aparente001 The vast majority of people respond to such things with "I honestly don't understand why what I did was wrong, please explain", and then "no, you're wrong, your reasons make zero sense", etc etc.
But anybody and his cousin can read this and I don't wish to discuss this further here. I would be grateful of the opportunity to discuss it in private at journeyman's convenience.
I don't know what you mean. The answer to what is "no"?
How was this any different (from your point of view)? (From my point of view, the segue into thiis area made me profoundly uncomfortable, and I tried very hard to make that clear.)
@sonic - when you need to criticize your kid because of inappropriate behavior at Thanksgiving, you call him/her discreetly into the hall or the kitchen. You don't have that conversation in front of Aunt Bess.
It's humiliating and counterproductive.
If my choices are to let my frustrations fester all on my own, vs. discuss a private matter with you here in public, I choose the former.
I would have been very glad to discuss the matter with a CM -- but there has been no response.
We're not accusing you of anything - we're simply answering your questions, and giving you an alternate path that is still also private: contacting a CM.
@sonic - "we're simply answering your questions, and giving you an alternate path that is still also private: contacting a CM." (a) you said you wanted to be left out of it. (b) I didn't ask any questions. (c) Telling me to contact a CM is like Marie Antoinette telling the starving to eat cake.
@JourneymanGeek - It doesn't have to be like herding cats. I gave the mods here an opportunity to proactively help me deal with a problem -- which then exploded several weeks later. To me, that feels profoundly unfair (to me) and rather short sighted (from the mods' point of view).
I am very sorry, but I have to go now. I hope, J., you and your colleagues will reconsider.
@aparente001 a) I wanted to be left out of the private discussion. b) You did ask for (make some requests for) things that Journeyman Geek has repeatedly said he isn't willing to do. c) It's worked for me personally. I don't recommend things if I know they won't work.
@JourneymanGeek some things are down / not studiously maintained recently (hard to follow gist from SoBiotics where people are tired (and slowly becoming reenergized)) - so things go up and down, might need to file a bug report on that UserScript, here's a fun replacement: stackapps.com/q/8327/58236
One possible solution would be look through the History and ping the last one immediately (especially if they were recently on one of the sites), then a few minutes later ping the next one (and so on, but once there's a total of 10 minutes delay do all the rest).
@Sonic - Thank you for following up. "a) I wanted to be left out of the private discussion." Thank you for clarifying. I see now from the context that you weren't speaking in general.
"b) You did ask for (make some requests for) things that Journeyman Geek has repeatedly said he isn't willing to do." It's true that "ask" and "ask for" look quite similar but to me at least the meaning is quite different. // He stated here today that he wasn't willing to have a private conversation but that is a position (or policy?) that either he didn't make clear earlier or didn't make it into my brain.
It strikes me as a strange policy, but there are two other moderators here; it doesn't have to be him specifically.
"c) It's worked for me personally. I don't recommend things if I know they won't work." I asked a question about this yesterday (meta.stackexchange.com/q/339847/287826) and I hope you will contribute an answer. I'm glad for you that you heard back in a timely way, but I'm sad that I and apparently some others haven't. I wonder if the recent events have extended the response time.
Thank you and journeyman again for teaching me how to find my own deleted questions.
@Sonic - I checked my email and found:
I received an auto-confirmation of a "contact us" message on March 3 and a thoughtful response on March 20. I received auto-confirmation of "contact us" messages on Nov. 6 and 17 and today.
Currently, users can get stuck in a permanent flag hellban from which there is no recovery.
I've asked around before and it doesn't look like recovery is possible. To recover, you'd need to gain flag weight, and to gain flag weight you need someone to handle your flags. Since your flags now g...
I just noticed that my profile on Programmers no longer shows my flag weight. Instead I see the number of helpful flags. At the same time, the definition for the Marshal badge has been changed to "500 helpful flags".
Does that mean there is no more flag weight? All that counts now is the number ...
@JourneymanGeek - I've had several experiences with conversations with moderators in private rooms; there is certainly a record of the conversation. // I suppose each moderator has to find their own style. I get that. But I thought that there were certain things we were all supposed to
embrace, such as "assume the best." I was surprised earlier today when you said you assume nothing. Well, if that works for you in general, I guess that's okay. However, if you don't want to assume the best with me, then I would like to ask that we keep our distance from each other when possible.
This week we chat with Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he helps lead its Crypto Fund. Dixon and a16Z are now launching a new Crypto Sartup School devoted to educating young developers and entrepreneurs interested in the crypto space.
You can check out the back story of Dixon’s first company, SiteAdvisor, here. It was built during a time when spyware was a booming business and browsers had few systems in place to combat bad actors. The company was acquired by McAfee in 2006. It’s a great trip through the history of web security at the time. …
from Robert Harvey's previous posts and comments I got the impression that he's generally calm and composed and provides criticism in a non-hostile, generally acceptable way, so it's a surprise to me that he was suspended for a year for his latest discussion post on meta, but because I don't have 10k rep, I can't view the deleted post and try to learn from his alleged mistakes what he said wrong, and therefore I have no way to know whether the ban was rightful or not
and since bans are not a topic allowed for discussion, there's no way to really ask anyone else to share the contents of deleted posts
this results in doubt in the moderation decisions, which I don't think was the intended result, but is an unfortunate reality
I would like it if users were able to view deleted content on Meta.SE if they also have enough rep to do the same on other sites, I think that would only be fair
If we can't suspend people and trust the community to let them come back without bringing up whatever was done wrong ... We're likely to end up suspending again.
in light of recent events I'd like to learn more about the effects of such "backseat moderation" and figure out whether I'm the principal Skinner from the meme or not
viewing deleted posts at 10k rep exists for some reason
@Magisch Sure. But like this? Nah. That's never been the case.
@user1306322 it's the same level where regular users get the privilege to delete stuff (mostly). So you can view deleted stuff and vote to undelete it if it's e.g. edited.
so I suppose the list of purposes of this privilege does not include "judging for yourself" or something, to oversee moderation decisions by non-regular-users?
@user1306322 to have users with the trusted privilege check if stuff of value is getting deleted incorrectly. I'm such a trusted user, you can trust me, that post would have stayed deleted.
lately I've been talking to different users here and I've collected enough info to see that everyone has different core values at heart and there are distinct groups who want different things for the site, for the MSE in particular, for the future of global Q&A, for the wronged users, and it's hard to gauge the overall opinion from a small number of anonymous post votes, so just looking at post scores is only a vague indicator of what the aggregate public desire is
I'm just gonna refrain from any action at this point until I have sufficient data
@Tinkeringbell I've seen inquiries of similar intensity (maybe not of similar distrust) over on SO quite a few times, basically clockwork like every time someone with clout gets suspended.
still, I think there's a valid self-governance interest in wanting details when high profile members get suspended. This isn't like any other suspension, there's no pretense of pseudo anonimity, especially because most active users can see the post in question, so it feels pointless to go the route of not discussing it
at this crucial time a lot of people are on the fence with regards to what to think about MSE mods, especially since we didn't elect y'all traditionally. It seems like closing off will just lose a lot of people, people you need to make this work in future.
Do we really? Do we really want to go the route of spreading rumours about why people were suspended as a community, only to demand moderators quell those rumours?
the only decision you have is to react in a way that quells or reinforces them
Usually the principle of don't show don't tell works. But that breaks down for high profile users. Outside of SO, high profile users rarely get suspended, but when they do, it always makes waves. It's a lesser version of what happened to monica before the statements to the press. When highly respected members get time outs, there are going to be rumors. This is multiplicated by the current climate, and has the potential to deal a lot of damage to mod credibility, especially among those who are
already on the edge of distrusting y'all alltogether. And those are the people who will then become an issue themselves, instead of being swayed to help calm down the waters. Thats just my 2 cents on this, I know you hate backseat moderating so I'll curb it there
user245382
Maybe it would help to reframe "backseat moderating" as "working together". You know, like a community, as opposed to making it more "us vs them". Maybe contributions from well-meaning users should be appreciated, as opposed to "hated" and discouraged. You wouldn't say "No working together", would you? (not directed at you, Magisch)
The problem is that moderators are given a lot more access to information and context that the rest of us don't have. We can't always see the content that led to decisions, or see if someone's been warned, or if there's a pattern of disruptive behavior.
There's ... I'm reading this book called 'making evil'. Quote: 'More poignantly, the offenders people choose to idolise, those who have fans, are those who embody other characteristics that society values'.
Seems applicable. There's a lot that people value about Robert.
There's very little I can do once people decide to mistrust us, that doesn't break confidence.
We don't discuss suspensions publicly, remember?
And well, it has always been that if you don't see any crap, that means it's cleaned up. Not that it was never there.
@Tinkeringbell That has been mostly true, though not always
And there is a lot you can do to stop people from getting to the point where they mustrust you. Trust and consent of the governed is essential to making being a moderator work, in my opinion. If you're going to take a strict and teacher-like approach to the situation a lot of things get harder and even untenable.
Right now, if I'd listen to 'the community' and let them tell me what we should/should not moderate in order to not be 'mistrusted'... we can as well shut down meta as it would become a cesspool of hatred and negativity.
user206222
7:40 AM
On a theoretical level, I'm not sure that's strictly true @Magisch, but... it's true that Stack doesn't have many conceptual models for moderation that works effectively in that mode.
user206222
Doesn't mean it can't work, just means most people here haven't been exposed to it, and it would be a tonal shift. No a priori judgement as to its 'goodness.'
Saying an explanation is not the most reasonable is not offensive. I m not that good at english but the word "unreasonable" is being used even by Tim. Perhaps I used the wrong synonym? What's the correct way to say "a very unlikely explanation"?
a very unlikely explanation? Still... if your idea of what is constructive differs from whoever moderated the comments... claiming you remember that they were not is just going in circles.
Soooo... I'm not going to waste more time on things like this.
There's this bit of wisdom: As soon as people start to talk about how things are said instead of what is said, the conversation is past a point where it is reasonable to continue it. You just reached that point :)
Thank you for the advice Tinkerbell. I have learned a lot about moderation from you in our short interactions :) Please if you have any other useful advice, share it ^^
if you have to fight the very people you're doing this for, every interaction after that will be hostile. That'll burn people out and also kind of necessitates moving away from the election process, because only people squarely against that idea will win elections from then on
@Magisch Define 'substantial amount'. So far, that substantial amount to me seems to be a bunch of loud voices that popped out of the woodwork after the current fires started.
before I type this out I want to know if you want to actually hear what I think about this, or if I'm intruding upon business I have no place intruding on
@Shadow meta.stackexchange.com/a/340062/369802 < Any chance I could convince you to get rid of everything below the line break, so your post better meets 'note 2' from the question?
So. We have people coming to chat to contest deletion of comments beneath an answer by a moderator to a question contesting why a moderator suspended someone. sigh
@Raedwald actually it's beneath an answer by a moderator to a question contesting why a moderator suspended someone for asking why someone was suspended.
In any case, Rob, I'm confused as to why you'd think it would be a duplicate. One is asking what you use Meta.SE for; the other is asking why people stay on the network. Quite distinct.
@Magisch on an unrelated notice, I was wondering if you folks realized that the chicken now points to something far more noteworthy than last year. See here
@TRiG Not really. Users self-delete all the time, moderators only really delete spam accounts or very obvious socks (the less obvious ones are usually escalated to CMs).
Either of those often isn't the kind of user that consistently downvotes moderators ;)
@djsmiley2k-CoW my wife got three pairs of socks with colors that aren't 100% the same, "just" 99% or so. And those are black socks, with only a line of color on top. Takes me few minutes every time to match. It's a nightmare! :P
(might take a picture next time I do it)
Oh, and like 10 black socks with 100% same color, but bit different size.
